Protective effects of bubble bath hydrotherapy on brain damage of neonatal rats with recurrent seizures / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

ObjectiveTo explore the potentiality of protection by bubble bath hydrotherapy to brain damage of neonatal rats with recurrent seizures.MethodsSixty Sprague-Dawley neonatal rats were randomly divided into control group ( CON),control hydrotherapy group ( HCON ),recurrent-seizure group (RS) and recurrent-seizure hydrotherapy group (HRS).Each group had 15 rats.The volatile agent flurothyl was used to induce 30 min seizure attack.At postnatal day 6 (P6),recurrent seizures were induced once per day for consecutive 6 days in the RS group and HRS group.Rats in the CON and HCON group were placed into the container for same time as their counterpart without exposure to flurothyl.In HCON and HRS groups,Bubble bath hydrotherapy intervention was used after the end of the last seizure for 28 consecutive days.Inspections were made for maturation of physical characteristics,neural behavior.PRG-1 and Bcl-2 protein level in cerebral cortex were detected by western blot method at P50.Results1.Maturation of physical characteristicsbody weights of the rats in the RS group were decreased significantly (P＜0.05).Body weights of HRS rats were significantly increased than that of RS rats(P＜0.05 ).There were no significant difference of physiological development phenomenon among the five groups (P ＞0.05 ).2.There was high nerve excitation in hydrotherapy group ( At P26,the scores of OFT respectively were 45.78 ± 18.31 for CON,59.78 ± 25.61 for HCON,27.78 ± 16.83 for RS and 53.15 ± 22.43 for HRS,P ＜ 0.01 ).3.The expression of PRG-1 in cerebral cortex of RS group were significantly higher than that of CON group (1.149 ±0.191 for RS,0.910 ±0.162 for CON,P＜ 0.05 ).The level of Bcl-2 in cerebral cortex of RS group ( 1.149 ±0.191 ) were significantly lower than that of CON group( 1.259 ±0.157) (P＜0.05 ),the level of Bcl-2in cerebral cortex of HRS group( 1.572 ± 0.333 ) were significantly higher than that of RS group(P＜ 0.05 ).ConclusionMaturation of physical characteristics and neurobehavioral were damages following recurrent neonatal seizures,which may be associated with significantly increased level of PRG-1 protein and decreased level of Bcl-2protein in cerebral cortex.The early intervention by Bubble bath hydrotherapy can play a positive role on developmental rehabilitation.